Taste
by Keeper of Tomes
Summary: 39 of the 100 Challenge. DA/MC--"When he is with her, he cannot afford to think twice..."


**Title: **Taste**  
Author: **Tomie**  
Song: **None**  
Summary: **39 of the 100 Challenge. DA/MC--"When he is with her, he cannot afford to think twice..."**  
Words: **2,537**  
Pairing(s): **DA/MC  
**Inspiration(s): **Hermonthis, "How You Taste To My Tongue."

This is purely experimental. I'm not sure how good it is. Really, some parts sorta-kinda suck...So review. Category?

Hrm...Lime. I wouldn't call it lemon, I'd call it lime.

Happy reading.

* * *

**T A S T E**

**_Salty_**

The intention was for this to be a quiet afternoon in the palace, a time which Talons could spend as they chose, and commanders used to hunker down and write their long-overdue reports. There was a milky sort of "this-is-calm" thought in the air, spoken without words between passing men and women, who had seemingly pointless smiles pressed to their mouths and eyes.

Master Cyclonis had taken this rare opportunity to catch up on some experiments. She stood and worked quietly, diligently, at her crystal lab, hands moving on their own. Her brain was elsewhere today, elsewhere and everywhere, somewhere past the stormy and turbulent red skies of the kingdom she ruled with an iron fist. The quiet opening of the doors behind her, which was almost inaudible, caused a slight jump as they jolted her from dark thoughts. Her finger slipped on the sharp facets of the crystal in her hands.

Blood dripped to the metal floor.

"What?" she growled.

The silence was unnerving. She spun around, holding the wounded digits close to her chest, protective of herself to the last...

The Dark Ace looked at her placidly, before holding out his latest report. She glanced at the blossoming stain of red on her hand, then at the clean white of the folder. Did not want to show him that she bled, and therefore was human. Did not want to appear vulnerable before the least vulnerable of her servants. "Set it down on the table. I will get to it later."

But eyes made of ruby notice that she is hiding something.

He strides up the steps and to her side, looks down at her and inquires after her health: "Is something the matter, Master?" And at this distance, she cannot hide the breaking of her skin, nor the shattering of the quiet around her. There is liquid on the crystals that matches the liquid on her flesh. He reaches out and takes her hand without permission. She looks at him darkly for an explanation, an explanation he is not bound to give, nor does he.

The wound is deep. He brings the pale fingers to his lips and tastes the salt of the blood.

A shudder runs from the base of her spine to the top of her head, as memories of hand games and mind games of a long forgotten youth come oozing back. He gives her hand back to her, the warmth of his glove leaving the ice of her skin. She thinks she just might hit him, until she looks down and sees that most of the red is gone, replaced by a faint pink haze.

He smiles the way he smiles after nearly all his battles...somehow, the ones with Aerrow don't seem to count. She has seen that grin too many times to miss it.

It is the smile of victory.

* * *

**_Sweet_**

Evening brings no stars, never the stars. Quiet vacancies in a darkening sky, perhaps the sliver of a moon...This is why the calendars are attuned to the sun: because no one gives a damn what happens to the ceiling of the world at night.

It is summer. It is hot. The belching smoke stacks of the factories below are pumping noxious gasses into the air, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The distant shriek of a bell tells everyone that the night-shift has begun, and bedraggled workers are dragging themselves from the warmth of their homes to the steaming hot of the factory floor.

She is sitting at her desk, by her bed, in her room. The highest room in the highest tower of the highest palace in Cyclonia. The only palace in Cyclonia. This is a tyranny like no other, something she makes sure no one will ever forget.

The restless lurching of her feet as she writes distracts her. Once again, her mind begins to wander...the burnished steel of her home flashing as skimmers took off...such a lovely sight...She sets the pen down and stands, wandering around her room, legs swishing back and forth, back and forth. The veins of her heart sprawl and reach to the tips of her fingers; the blood pounds.

A white bandage reminds her of crystals and a mouth.

The feel of someone's lips.

On her skin.

A knock on the door. Cyclonis steps lightly over the carpet, footsteps muffled, and opens it with irritation.

"Evening."

A voice smoother than silk; she can feel anticipation touch the tip of her tongue, and it tastes sweet as honey. He steps into her room as she sweeps her arm through the air, a silent and unspoken invitation. He raises a dark eyebrow and places a familiar manila envelope into her hands. "You didn't read the report."

_Flit. _The papers are dropped unceremoniously onto a nearby chair. "Pity. I worked hard on that, too," he says.

It is only when his mouth feels hers that he realizes she's kissing him. He wants to smile, but can't. He finds it impossible. You must act on impulse, soldier. You must do what it is you know she wants you to do: react. When he is with her, he cannot afford to think twice.

She tastes the warmth of his mouth; it spreads through her blood like poison. The vice-like grip of his fingers, wrapped tight around her wrists, only adds to the moment, only adds to the heat. Summer molds around them, something of a protective cocoon that is encasing two struggling butterflies. Her skin feels as if it would melt into him, onto him, _through him_.

He pulls back first.

Silence. They do not breathe. Breath would ruin everything.

He lets go gently, setting her arms down at her sides. He smiles again, that long repressed grin, before picking up the discarded report and saying, "See you in the morning," before he steps through the door. She smirks to herself after he's gone, knowing that to him, this is the greatest battle of all...

And one he intends to win.

This is how he will achieve the highest control a man can attain.

Cyclonis sits down and crosses her legs lightly at the knee. The blood has ceased to pound, the night is quiet, and the night is hot.

* * *

**_Spicy_**

"Say it."

He will not. This is one situation where she is no longer his Master, and he no longer her faithful servant. She had always expected, in her curious way of foreseeing everything, that his dog like, "I will serve you forever" attitude would continue, regardless of any romantic attachments between them. If you could call this romance. But she sees that all his servitude, it was dark and delicious foreplay. Sensuous and almost sadistic.

And she _likes _sadistic.

"Say it," she whispers, her voice tantalizing against the curl of his ear. But the order bounces without effect off of his mind. He wraps his hands around her waist and pulls her towards him.

"You say it first," he growls, smiling. Three little words, how hard can it be?

Very hard, if it's a lie.

The foreplay is over, it is time for the act. She's up against a wall and he's up against her. _Do you love me, or do you love the idea of me? _A rapport of words, a waterfall of syllables. Say it. Say it. Say it.

Taste the sweat in the crook of her neck. It burns your tongue.

Fire, fire, fire. A rhythm, a pulse. To have fire, you must have friction. He will never see her fully unclothed, because instinct tells him she'd never give herself to him like that. That what transpires between them is just a game to her, a power game, as is every other motion. That this is carefully calculated. Spontaneity is meant for lovers.

Here are two murderers, and they kill all that is sweet.

* * *

**_Bitter_**

The Dark Ace is gone in the morning; he's gone every morning. She can hear the high-pitched whine of skimmer wheels as they take off, and she knows one of them is his.

Her hand rests on the blank space of bed beside her, the blank stretch of sheets. She feels the arch of the world as it rolls beneath her; every movement is heightened times a million after sex. You are used to rapidity. Moving slow is not an option.

A sour thing is in her mouth, the aftertaste of lies. But is it a lie if you both know it? Is it a lie if you both utter it?

_Say it, say it, say it._

Why had she asked him to say it?

Why had she asked for something she was never to receive, something she didn't think she wanted in the first place?

_Say it_.

"Say it," she whispered. She said it. Just to see what it felt like on her lips. "I love you."

It tasted bitter.

It tasted good.

* * *

**_Bland_**

Blueprints. Charts. Maps.

Hand-drawn with loving care.

She runs her hand down the facts before her, the facts carved harsh and stiff into her mind. _One plus one is two. A matrix is a crystal's DNA. The Dark Ace does not love me._

Nor does he need me.

She does not realize he is watching, from fifty feet behind. Watching as she works at her desk. He'll visit her again, tonight.

If she'll let him in.

* * *

**_Sour_**

It rained when he knocked on her door. It rained when she answered it. It rained when he stepped in, hands behind his back, a quiet and contemplative look on his face. "What is it?" She steps back and sits on the edge of her bed. The sheets have been pulled down and it is waiting for bodies.

"I've been thinking..." he mumbles.

She is waiting for conquest...

"...and..."

She is waiting for defeat...

"...I believe that..."

She is waiting to surrender.

"...we don't need this."

Cyclonis shudders. _Don't need what, idiot? Come here and kiss me. Fool. _"Don't need what?" Funny, how words always...almost always...echo thoughts. He looks at her and his eyes are downcast. Don't make me say it out loud, that's what he thinks. Don't make me. He nods quietly at the bed and she sighs. Stands. "I am not a child," she snaps.

"It isn't that."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't like playing games."

"You're the one who's playing games!"

It comes out like a snarl.

He seems shocked at what she has been thinking all along. She is shocked because he is shocked. He turns and leaves without another word; words run dry when you find yourself faced with a lie-you-thought-was-a-lie-but-was-actually-the-truth. The facts shatter. _Oneplusoneistwo... amatrixisacrysta'lsDNA..._

_theDarkAcedoesnotloveme..._

She closed her eyes and sat back down.

He paused outside her door and considered going back in. Should he? Could he? The air was sour, like week-old milk left outside of the fridge. He turned around and stepped through the hallways, eyes closed, moving solely based on memory...

Or the lack of it.

* * *

**_Beautiful_**

It stops raining. It never rains for long in Cyclonia. Just like it never snows, or hails, or any sort of weather.

Really, it's just an awful lot of fire.

She sits on her throne, rigid. Feels the wrapping of the silence around her neck. It strangles her, attempting to squeeze out the hidden words, so that it may be fed. Silence always wishes to be turned into brittle noise. So that it may be broken and go to heaven.

The doors in front of her open; two Talons step inside to present recent information on the Storm Hawks. "Master--"

"Later," she grumbles. "Later." They leave without questions and she lets them go without answers. What is it she wants? What is it she needs? What she wants is for those doors to open, for the Dark Ace to jump in here, grab her about the waist, and say something. What she needs is for him to keep his distance, else wise she just might rip him apart searching for words...She is like the silence. She knows what she thirsts for could very well kill her.

There is a cough from a dark corner of the throne room. There are multiple emergency exits, hidden carefully in the riveting of the walls; he must've come from one of them. A cough and the motion of a smile. She stands and straightens even more, before asking who's there, a question she already knows the answer to. The only reply is a series of footsteps, followed by an apology. Of sorts.

"We shouldn't have," he says.

"But we did," she replies. Then, and she means it as a sort of hopeful joke, Cyclonis laughs and says, "Say it."

From the darkness, through the silence: "I love you."

She stumbles backwards onto her metal throne. There's a clank. _Clank_. There's a breath. _Whoo. _There's a smile. What does a smile sound like?

"Say it again." She aches for confirmation. She even bounds to her feet once more, ready to meet what could very well be an ugly truth--

He steps up to her and whispers it, voice warm and comforting. "I love you..." And she, being polite, allows him to finish, before telling him to shut up and covering his mouth with hers.

_So tell me...is this real? Or is it a dream?_

He takes her by the hand, and he shows her the answer.

* * *

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Click de "Review" button.


End file.
